make them safer, make them better...mcbios 2017 xiv annual meeting program make them safer make them...

Embassy Suites, Little Rock, AR

March 23-25, 2017

Make them Safer, Make them Better:

Bioinformatics and the Development of Therapeuticals

h#p://mcbios.org

MCBIOS 2017 XIV Annual Conference Program Overview

• UALR Emerging Analytical Center Tour

• Keynote -1 • Young Scientist

Excellence Award Post Docs

• Young Scientist Excellence Award Students

• Poster Session: Students and Post- Docs

• Reception • Board Dinner

• Keynote – 2 • Breakout Session I:

Metagenomics and the Microbiome

• Breakout Session II: Biomedical Informatics

• Breakout Session III: Machine Learning and Chemoinformaitcs

• Breakout Session IV: Drug Design and Development

• Breakout Session V: Biomarker and high-throughput data analysis

• Breakout Session VI: Genomics and therapeutics development

• Workshops I – II • Poster Session : Professionals • Reception • Workshop III - IV

March 23rd March 25th March 24th

• Board Meeting • Keynote – 3 • Breakout Session

VII: Reproducible Genomics and Toxicogenomics

• Breakout Session VIII – in silico and in vivo Adverse reaction detection

• Breakout Session IX - Systems pharmacology and Bioinformatics

• Closing & Awards

• 2017 MCBIOS committee - Page 1 • MCBIOS Board - Page 1 • Detailed Program - • List of Poster Presenters - Page 11 • List of Oral Presenters - Page 19 • Proceedings - Page 27 • Biographies - Page 28 • Map - Page 41

10:00am to 06:45pm

08:00am to 06:00pm

08:30am to 01:30pm

Mid-South Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (MCBIOS) XIV Annual Conference

MCBIOS 2017 Organizing Committee

Conference Co-Chairs Cesar M. Compadre, Ph.D., UAMS and William Slikker Jr., Ph.D., FDA/ NCTR

Program Co-Chairs Shraddha Thakkar, Ph.D., FDA/NCTR and Weida Tong, Ph.D., FDA/NCTR

• Darin E. Jones, Ph.D., Finance Coordinator , Assistant Professor, UALR, Little Rock, AR • Mary Yang, Ph.D., Poster Judging Coordinator, Associate Professor, UALR, Little Rock, AR • Ujwani Nukala, MS, Student Activity Coordinator , Ph.D. Candidate, UALR, Little Rock, AR

MCBIOS Board of Directors 2016 - 2017 • Shraddha Thakkar, Ph.D., President, Board Member thru 2019, Visiting Scientist, FDA National

Center for Toxicology Research, Jefferson AR • Cesar Compadre, Ph.D., Immediate- Past President, Board member thru 2018 Professor,

Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock AR • Bindu Nanduri, Ph.D., President – Elect , Board Member through 2019, Associate Professor, College

of Veterinary Medicine, Mississippi State University, Starkville MS • Chaoyang (Joe) Zhang, Ph.D., Past-President, Board Member thru 2017, Director, School of

Computing, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg MS • Darin E. Jones, Ph.D., Treasurer, Board Member, Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas at Little

Rock, Little Rock, AR • Roger Perkins, Board Member thru 2017, Program Director, Information Tech and Bioinformatics

Contract, FDA National Center for Toxicology Research, Jefferson, AR • Mikhail Dozmorov, Ph.D., Secretory, Board Member thru 2017, Assistant Professor, Department of

Biostatistics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Blacksburg VA • Jianlin (Jack) Cheng, Ph.D., Board Member thru 2017, Associate Professor, Department of Computer

Science, University of Missouri, Columbia MO • Ping Gong, Ph.D., Board Member through 2018, Principle Investigator, United States Army • Ramin Homayouni, Ph.D., Board Member through 2019, Professor of Biology, Director of

Bioinformatics, University of Memphis, Memphis TN • Yongsheng Bai, Ph.D., Board Member through 2020, Assistant Professor, Indiana State University,

Terra Haute, IN • Inimary Toby, Ph.D., Board Member through 2020, Senior Computational Scientist, UT

Southwestern, Dallas, TX

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MCBIOS 2017 XIV Annual Meeting Program

Make them Safer Make them Better: Bioinformatics and the Development of Therapeutics

Day 1, Thursday March 23rd 2017 09:00am – 06:30pm Registration and Poster Set up

“Foyer IV” 09:30am – 11:00am UALR Emerging Analytics Center Tour

Host - Tom Coffin, PMP, Senior visualization and operations manager, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR Bus leaves from Embassy Suites Hotel, Little Rock, Arkansas

01:00pm – 1:05pm Opening MCBIOS President - Shraddha Thakkar, Ph.D., Visiting Scientist, Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR “Ambassador IV”

01:05pm – 01:55pm Keynote Session I Pharmacogenetic and Genomic applications for Safety and

Therapeutic Efficacy Assessment in drug development programs

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Borlak, Ph.D., Director of the Institute of Pharmaco- and Toxicogenomics, Hannover Medical School,

Hannover, Germany “Ambassador IV”

01:55pm – 02:00pm Break “Foyer IV”

02:00pm – 02:30pm Welcome Remarks • MCBIOS President - Shraddha Thakkar, Ph.D., Visiting Scientist, Division

of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR • MCBIOS Conference Co-Chair - Cesar M. Compadre, Ph.D., Professor,

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR • Andrew Rogerson, Ph.D. , Chancellor, University of Arkansas at Little

Rock, Little Rock, AR • Larry Cornett, Ph.D., Vice Chancellor for Research, University of Arkansas

for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR • Weida Tong, Ph.D., Director, Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics,

US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR “Ambassador IV”

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02:30pm – 03:45pm Young Scientist Excellence Award Session for Post-doctoral Fellows Session Chair - Shraddha Thakkar, Ph.D., Visiting Scientist, Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR “Ambassador IV”

02:30pm – 02:45pm Defining A Landscape Of Genes, MiRNA and Their Associations in Hepatocarcinogenesis: A Study of Thioacetamide with Multiple Dose and Time Intervals of Rats Harsh Dweep, Ph.D., Post-doctoral Fellow, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR

02:45pm – 03:00pm Developing Image Analysis Methods to Identify The Species of Food Contaminating Beetles Tanmay Bera, Ph.D., Post-doctoral Fellow, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR

03:00pm – 03:15pm Development and Validation of Estrogen Receptor Beta Binding Prediction Model Using Large Sets of Chemicals Suguna Devi Sakkiah, Ph.D., Post-doctoral Fellow, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR

03:15pm – 03:30pm Novel Low Cost 3D Surface Model Reconstruction System for Plant Phenotyping Suxing Liu, Ph.D., Post-doctoral Fellow, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR

03:30pm – 03:45pm Using Advanced Text Mining Techniques to Collect Regulatory Science Information from CDER-generated Documents Suresh Subramani, Ph.D., Post-doctoral Fellow, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR

03:45pm – 04:00pm Break “Foyer IV”

04:00pm – 05:15pm Young Scientist Excellence Award Session for Students Session Chair - Shraddha Thakkar, Ph.D., Visiting Scientist, Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR “Ambassador IV”

04:00pm – 04:15pm Prior Construction for Optimal Bayesian Classification Using Unlabeled Data Shahin Boluki, Graduate Student, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX

04:15pm – 04:30pm Drug Lipophilicity and Metabolism as Risk Factors of Drug-Induced Liver Injury Kristin McEuen, Graduate Student, University of Arkansas of Little Rock, Little Rock, AR

04:30pm – 04:45pm Development of novel vitamin E analogs, Tocoflexols with enhanced bioavailability using in silico approaches Ujwani Nukala, Graduate Student, University of Arkansas of Little Rock, Little Rock, AR

04:45pm – 05:00pm Drug Repurposing for LEOPARD Syndrome by Integrating Chemical Structure and Genomics based Approaches Brian Delavan, Graduate Student, University of Arkansas of Little Rock, Little Rock, AR

05:00pm – 05:15pm Detection of unknown bacteria using short reads from 16S rRNA genes Quang Tran, Graduate Student, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN

05:15pm – 06:45pm Poster Session (Students and Post-Doctoral Fellows)

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“Foyer IV-VII” Reception “Ambassador V-VII”

Day 2, Friday March 24th 2017 07:30am – 5:00pm Registration

“Foyer I-II” 08:00am – 08:50am Keynote Session II

The Top 5 Greatest Bioinformatics Graphs Never Published Wendell Jones, Ph.D., Principal Bioinformaticist and Scientific

Advisor, Q2 Solutions | EA Genomics, Morrisville, NC “Ambassador IV-VII”

08:50am – 09:00am Break “Foyer I-II”

09:00am – 10:20am Breakout Session I, II, III 09:00am – 10:20am Breakout Session I: Metagenomics and the Microbiome

Session Chair and speaker – Steven Foley, Ph.D., Deputy Director, Division of Microbiology, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR “Consulate I- II”

09:00am – 09:20am Session Featured Speaker Risk Assessment Insights from High-Throughput Sequencing and Metagenomics on the Safety Evaluation of Antimicrobial Residues in Food to Determine Their Impact on the Human Intestinal Microbiome Carl Cerniglia, Ph.D., Director, Division of Microbiology, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR

09:20am – 09:35am Evaluation of Antimicrobial Resistance Determinants in the Gastrointestinal Microbiome Steven Foley, Ph.D., Deputy Director, Division of Microbiology, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR

09:35am – 09:50am Development, Validation, and Implementation of Tuberculosis Data Standards: an Exercise of Stakeholder Collaboration Anita Walden, Ph.D., Instructor, Biomedical Informatics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

09:50am - 10:05am Microbiome and Host Genome Cross-talk in Lung Cancer Tissues Mohammed S. Orloff, Ph.D., Associate Professor, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

10:05am – 10:20am dBBQs : DataBase of Bacterial Quality scores Visanu Wanchai, Graduate Student, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

09:00am – 10:20am Breakout Session II: Biomedical Informatics

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Session Chair - Fred Prior, Ph.D., Chair, Department of Biomedical informatics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR Student Co-Moderator- Gauri Lamture, Graduate Student, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR “Ambassador I”

09:00am – 09:20am Session Featured Speaker Radiomics and Imaging Informatics to Track Response to Cancer Therapy Fred Prior, Ph.D., Chair, Department of Biomedical informatics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

09:20am – 09:35am Genomic Basis for Microcephaly in Brazilian strains of Zika Virus Se-Ran Jun, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

09:35am – 09:50am Translating Time: Eye Development Event Timing Similarities Across Eight Species Marico Bryant Howe, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

09:50am - 10:05am Identification and Annotation of Orthologous LncRNAs In Human And Rat Brain Dan Li, Graduate Student, University of Arkansas of Little Rock, Little Rock, AR

10:05am – 10:20am SNP Imputation And Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) Yan Wang, Graduate Student, University of Arkansas of Little Rock, Little Rock, AR

09:00am – 10:20am Breakout Session III: Machine Learning and Cheminformatics Session Chair - S. Joshua Swamidass, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Washington University St. Louis, St. Louis, TN Student Co-Moderator- Anqi Walbaum, Graduate Student, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR “Ambassador II”

09:00am – 09:20am Session Featured Speaker Deep Learning the Metabolism and Subsequent Reactivity of Drugs S. Joshua Swamidass, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Washington University St. Louis, St. Louis, TN

09:20am – 09:35am Data mining methods for treatment decision in precision medicine Un Jung Lee, Ph.D., Post-doctoral Fellow, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR

09:35am – 09:50am Fast Fourier Transformation of Peripheral Venous Pressure Predicts Fluid Loss Or Gain In A Porcine Model Kevin Sexton, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

09:50am - 10:05am Hicloess: A Method for Normalization and Comparison of Multiple Hic Datasets John Stansfield, Graduate Student, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA

10:05am – 10:20am In silico Prediction of Point Mutation-Conferred Herbicide Resistance Ping Gong, Ph.D., Environmental Laboratory, US Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Vicksburg, MS

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10:20am – 11:00am Break 11:00am – 12:20pm Breakout Session IV, V, VI 11:00am – 12:20pm Breakout Session IV: Drug Design and Development

Session Chair - Cesar M. Compadre, Ph.D., Professor, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR Student Co-Moderator- Dan Li, Graduate Student, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR “Consulate I- II”

11:00am – 11:20am Session Featured Speaker Structure-Activity Relationships of the Anti-Acute Myeloid Leukemia Sesquiterpene Lactones Cesar M. Compadre, Ph.D., Professor, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

11:20am – 11:35am Molecular Modeling and Interaction Studies Of P53 And Akt1 With Nutlin-3 And Spirochromane: A Step Towards Drug Designing For Lung Cancer Naureen Aslam, Graduate Student, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN

11:35am – 11:50am Molecular docking of the sesquiterpene lactone dimer JVM 355 to the target proteins of the NFκB pathway Gauri Lamture, Graduate Student, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

11:50am – 12:05pm Screening and Characterization of Small Molecules that Reduce Aβ1–42 Amyloid Aggregation In Nematode C. Elegans Samuel Kakraba, Graduate Student, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR

12:05pm – 12:20pm Elucidation of agonist and antagonist binding reaction mechanisms of ERα by integrated molecular dynamics and quantum mechanical calculations Selvaraj Chandrabose, Ph.D., Post-doctoral Fellow, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR

11:00am – 12:20pm Breakout Session V: Biomarker and high-throughput data analysis Session Chair - Mary Yang, Ph.D., University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR Student Co-Moderator – Skyler Conner, Graduate Student, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR “Ambassador I”

11:00am – 11:20am Session Featured Speaker Identification of cancer biomarker from high-throughput data Mary Yang, Ph.D., University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR

11:20am – 11:35am Evaluation of Cancer Driver Mutations In Rat Tumors As Biomarkers Of Human Carcinogenesis Using Next Generation Sequencing Page McKinzie, Ph.D., Research Microbiologist, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR

11:35am – 11:50am Using Tablets and Mobile Devices for Visual Analytics of Big Data in Bioinformatics

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Richard Segall, Ph.D., Professor, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR 11:50am – 12:05pm Buster_Hmp V0.4.1, an Integrated Genomic Resource for Development,

Exploitation and Crop Improvement For Hard Red Winter Wheat Karyn Willyerd, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Associate, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK

12:05pm – 12:20pm Building Better Schedules for a Better Conference Experience – Applying Textual Analysis Methods to Schedule Bioinformatics Conferences Prashanti Manda, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC

11:00am – 12:20pm Breakout Session VI: Genomics and therapeutics development Session Chair –Zhichao Liu, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR “Ambassador II”

11:00am – 11:20am Session Featured Speaker Concepts in Target-Indication Prioritization Mark Hurle, Ph.D., Director, Computational Biology (US), GlaxoSmithKline, Philadelphia, PA

11:20am – 11:35am Genome-Based Phylogeny of Clostridioides difficile David Ussery, Ph.D., Professor, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

11:35am – 11:50am Safety Assessment of Alternative Treatments: Cross Talk Between Microbiota and Immune Response During Perturbation of Gastrointestinal Tract Sangeeta Khare, Ph.D., Research Microbiologist, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR

11:50am – 12:05pm Construct Parkinson’s Disease-specific Gene Co-expression Modules for Drug Repositioning Zongliang Yue, Graduate Student, University of Birmingham, AL

12:05pm – 12:20pm Automated Bioinformatics Analysis Package using System On Chip (ABAPSoC) Priyam Patel, Graduate Student, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN

12:20pm – 01:30pm Lunch and MCBIOS Business Meeting 01:30pm – 03:00pm Workshop I and II 01:30pm – 03:00pm Workshop I

Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA) Anna Zhao-Wong, MD, Ph.D., Deputy Director, MedDRA MSSO

Session Moderator – Hong Fang, Ph.D., OCS, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR “Ambassador I”

01:30pm – 03:00pm Workshop II Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) datasets analysis using Galaxy platform

Binsheng Gong, Ph.D., Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR

Session Moderator – Ujwani Nukala, Graduate Student, University of Arkansas of Little Rock, Little Rock, AR

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“Ambassador II” 03:00pm – 04:00pm Reception and Poster Session (Professional)

“Foyer I-VII” 04:00pm – 06:00pm Workshop III and IV 04:00pm – 06:00pm Workshop III

PubChem Yanli Wang, Ph.D., Lead Scientist, National Center for Biotechnology Information

(NCBI), Washington D.C. Session Moderator – Huixiao Hong, Ph.D., US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR

“Ambassador I” 04:00pm – 06:00pm Workshop IV

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) and Bioinformatics Wenming Xiao, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, Division of Bioinformatics and

Biostatistics, FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR Session Moderator – Skyler Conner, Graduate Student, University of Arkansas of

Little Rock, Little Rock, AR “Ambassador II”

Day 3, Saturday, March 25th 2017 07:00am – 08:30am Board Meeting (new and old board) and Breakfast

“Diplomat” 08:30am – 09:20am Keynote Session III

Targeting Undruggable Protein Tyrosine Phosphatases John Lazo, Ph.D., Professor in Pharmacology, University of

Virginia, Charlottesville, VA “Ambassador IV-VII”

09:20am – 10:00am Break “Foyer I-II”

10:00am – 11:20am Breakout Session VII, VIII, IX 10:00am – 11:20am Breakout Session VII: Reproducible Genomics and Toxicogenomics

Session Chair- Joshua Xu, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR “Consulate I- II”

10:00am – 10:20am Session Featured Speaker Towards reproducible genomics – what we really know? Weida Tong, Ph.D., Director, Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR

10:20am – 10:35am Towards Precision Medicine Based Clinical Trials – Combining Liquid Biopsies, Animal Models, and Advanced Bioinformatics to Improve Lung Cancer Outcomes Donald Johann, Ph.D., Associate Professor, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

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10:35am – 10:50am Informatics Infrastructure For The Idea State Pediatric Clinical Trials Network (Ispctn), Part Of The Environmental Influences On Child Health Outcomes Meredith Zozus, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Academic Programs, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

10:50am – 11:05am The Choice of Statistical Methods Affects the Transcriptomic Data Analysis: T-test vs. ANOVA Mingrui Li, Graduate Student, Fudan University, China

11:05am – 11:20am Trajectory-Based Versus Average-Expression-Based (RNA-Seq) Classification Alireza Karbalayghareh, Graduate Student, Texas A&M University, Collage Station, TX

10:00am – 11:20am Breakout Session VIII – in silico and in vivo Adverse reaction detection Session Chair – Minjun Chen, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR “Ambassador I”

10:00am – 10:20am Session Featured Speaker Terbinafine Idiosyncractic Adverse Reactions: Pathways to q Reactive Aldehyde Predicted by Modeling and Assessed Experimentally Grover P. Miller, Ph.D., Associate Professor, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

10:20am – 10:35am MicroRNAs in Drug Induced Liver Injury and Liver Diseases Yuping Wang, Ph.D., Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR

10:35am – 10:50am The use of hepatic cells lines for the study of drug-induced live injury Zhen Ren, Ph.D., Post-Doctoral Fellow, FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR

10:50am – 11:05am Whole Genome Expression Profiling of Minipig Liver And Kidney In Response To Diclofenac Saravanakumar Selvaraj, Graduate Student, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

11:05am – 11:20am Integrating Drug’s Mode of Action into Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships for Improved Prediction of Drug-Induced Liver Injury Leihong Wu, Ph.D., Visiting Scientist, FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR

10:00am – 11:20am Breakout Session IX - Systems pharmacology and Bioinformatics Session Chair - Jake Y. Chen, Ph.D., University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Medicine, Birmingham, AL Student Co-Moderator – Ujwani Nukala, Graduate Student, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR “Ambassador II”

10:00am – 10:20am Session Featured Speaker Systems pharmacology: improving precision in drug repositioning Jake Y. Chen, Ph.D., University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Medicine, Birmingham, AL

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10:20am – 10:35am Bioinformatic Analysis of Mycobacteria Phage Genomes at Ouachita Baptist University Daniel Games, Graduate Student, Ouachita Baptist University, Arkadelphia, AR

10:35am – 10:50am SRNA study of S. pyogenes genome Ethan Rath, Graduate Student, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN

10:50am – 11:05am CUFID-query: Accurate Network Querying through Estimation of Network Flow Between Query and Target Networks based on Random Walk Hyundoo Jeong, Graduate Student, Texas A&M University, Collage Station, TX

11:05am – 11:20am Impact of RNA-seq Read Alignment on Differential Alternative Splicing Detection Mohammad Hajiramezanali, Graduate Student, Texas A&M University, Collage Station, TX

11:30am – 01:30am Lunch MCBIOS 2018 XV Annual Meeting Bindu Nanduri, Ph.D., President Elect -MCBIOS, Assistant Professor, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS Closing Remarks William Slikker, Jr, Ph.D., Director, FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR Awards Shraddha Thakkar, Ph.D., President – MCBIOS, Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, US FDA/NCTR, Jefferson, AR “Ambassador IV-VII”

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List of Poster Presenters S.

No Name Membership

Type Affiliation Title Date Time

1 Alan Amaya Student East Tennessee

State University,

Johnson City, TN

Analyzing the Protein-Protein Interaction Network of Tnf-Alpha

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

2 Aleksandra Perz

Student Oklahoma Medical

Research Foundation, Oklahoma

City, OK

Mnemonic – Metagenomic Experiment Mining to Create an

Otu Network of Inhabitant Correlations

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

3 Alexander Lim Student Oklahoma State

University, Stillwater, OK

Predictability of Neural Network Models For Carotenoid

Biofortification

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

4 Ali Akgul Student Mississippi State

University, Starkville, MS

Spermidine synthase (speE) in pneumococcal virulence: “A

capsule independent attenuation”

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

5 Anastasiia Golius

Student Jackson State University,

Jackson, MS

A Role of Protonation In The Formation Of Double-Stranded

Poly(A)

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

6 Andrew Maxwell

Student University of Southern

Mississippi, Hattiesburg,

MS

Deep Learning Architectures For Multi-Label Classification Of

Intelligent Health Risk Prediction

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

7 Andrew Maxwell

Student University of Southern

Mississippi, Hattiesburg,

MS

Micrat: A Novel Algorithm for Inferring Gene Regulatory

Networks Using Time Series Gene Expression Data

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

8 Anqi Walbaum Student University of Arkansas for

Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

Computational Modeling of the Interaction of Novel Quaternary Ammonium Molecules with the Α9α10 Nicotinic Acetylcholine

Receptor

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

9 Bindu Nanduri Professional Mississippi State

Hpidb: A Database for Annotation, Computational Prediction and

March 24th

03:00pm – 04:00pm

11


Analysis of Host-Pathogen Interactions

2017

10 Bindu Nanduri Professional Mississippi State


Distribution of Kinases In Chicken Tissue

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

11 Binsheng Gong Professional National Center for

Toxicological Research, US

FDA, Jefferson, AR

Evaluation of bioinformatics choices for next-generation

sequencing analysis of microRNAs

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

12 Binsheng Gong Professional National Center for


FDA, Jefferson, AR

A Bioinformatics Workflow for Low-frequency Mutation

Detection Enabled by Unique Molecular Identifier (UMI) and

Deep Targeted Sequencing

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

13 Bohu Pan Professional Post-Doc

National Center for


FDA, Jefferson, AR

Genome-wide characterizations of 4-Nitroquinoline 1-Oxide-induced

mutations in mouse lymphoma cells using next generation

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

14 Bryan Naidenov

Student Oklahoma State


Novel Gene Discovery by Genome Completion Through De Novo

Assembly Of Long-Reads

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

15 Caroline Melton

Student University of Memphis,

Memphis, TN

Identifyng Heteroplasmy In D. Carota Using Whole Genome Shotgun Sequencing Without

Known Variants

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

16 Charles Thrash Professional Mississippi State


SoyLENT: Visualizing Soybean Pedigrees

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

17 Chun-Chi Chen Student Texas A&M University,

Collage Station, TX

Effective computational detection of piRNAs using n-gram models

and support vector machine

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

18 Dianke Yu Professional Post-Doc

National Center for


FDA, Jefferson, AR

Roles of Long Non-Coding RNAs In Acetaminophen-Induced Liver

Injury

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

12

19 Duah Alkam Student University of Arkansas for

Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

Two-Component Signal Transduction System in 10,000 E.

Coli and Salmonella Genomes

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

65 Dustyn Barnette

Student University of Arkansas for

Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

Identifying Terbinafine Bioactivation Pathways Using

Experimental and Computational Techniques

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

20 Emine Bircan Student University of Arkansas for

Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

Olfml3 and Sp1 Together Act As Biomarkers To Distinguish Subtypes Of Lung Cancer

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

21 Erich Peterson Professional University of Arkansas for

Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

An Automated Regression Testing Approach for High-Throughput

Molecular Profiling Data

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

22 Galina Glazko Professional University of Arkansas for

Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

Molecular Classifiers: overcoming the curse of heterogeneity

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

64 Hong Fang Professional National Center for


FDA, Jefferson, AR

Extract Pharmacogenomics Information from FDA Drug

Labeling to Advance the Study of Precision Medicine

March 24th 2018

03:00pm – 04:00pm

23 Hua Du Professional Post-Doc

National Center for


FDA, Jefferson, AR

Evaluation of Germline Mutations Induced By Ethyl

Methanesulfonate In Different Reproductive Development Stages

of Caenorhabditis Elegans Using Whole Genome Sequencing

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

24 Hunter Gill Student Indiana State University,

Terre Haute, IN

Using Qsarins to Predict The Bacteriostatic Effects of

Antimicrobial Compound Candidates Against Foodborne

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

13

Pathogens

25 Hyundoo Jeong Student Texas A&M University,

Collage Station, TX

CUFID-Multialign: Enhanced Multiple Alignment of Biological Networks Through Estimation Of

Steady-State Flow Using A Random Walk Model

March 23rd 2018

05:15pm – 06:45pm

26 Jake Edmondson

Student Ouachita Baptist

University, Arkadelphia,

AR

Effect of Stress-Induced Exosomes on Global Gene Expression

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

27 Jasleen Kaur Student Mississippi Valley State University, Bena, MS

Syntenic Integration Of Gossypium Hirsutum Chromosomes

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

28 Jing Han Professional National Center for


FDA, Jefferson, AR

Impact of Storage Conditions on Bacterial Populations and the Formation of Tobacco-Specific

Nitrosamines (TSNAs) in Smokeless Tobacco Products

(STPs)

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

29 Leihong Wu Professional National Center for


FDA, Jefferson, AR

Mapping MedDRA In Fda Approved Drug Labeling To

Facilitate Adverse Drug Reaction Study

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

30 Leslie Shack Professional Mississippi State


Gene Expression Analysis of Impaired Polyamine Transport In

Streptococcus Pneumoniae

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

31 Liangqun Lu Student University of Memphis,

Memphis, TN

Large-Scale Microarray Data Based Feature Selection For Improved

Molecular Classification

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

32 Lindsey Wright Student East Tennessee

State University,

Johnson City, TN

Quantifying The Effects of A Single Point Mutation On The Cftr

Protein To Identify Drivers Of Pancreatic Insufficiency

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

33 Logan Clay Student Ouachita Baptist

University, Arkadelphia,

AR

Bioinformatic Analysis of Mycobacteria Phage Genomes At

Ouachita Baptist University

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

14

34 Mariana Pereira

Carvalho

Student Jackson State University,

Jackson, MS

Exploring Complex Disease Protein Relationships in Alzheimer's

Disease Using Protein Interactome and Protein Phylogeny

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

35 Mohsen Sharifi Student National Center for


FDA, Jefferson, AR

A Computational Approach to Understand the Adverse Drug Effect on Sodium Channels for Predicting Torsade de Pointes

Cardiac Arrhythmias

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

36 Mustafa Bayraktar

Student University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock,

AR

An Edge Based Segmentation Method for Skin Lesion Detection

on Dermoscopy Images

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

37 Narsimha Reddy Penthala

Professional University of Arkansas for

Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

Synthesis and Identification of Indole Melampomagnolide B

Carbamates As Lead Anti-Cancer Agents

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

38 Nesreen ALJahdali

Student University of Arkansas,

Fayetteville, AR

Determination of the Effect of, NeCarboxymethyllysine a Maillard

Reaction Products on the Microbiota in Mice and its

Potential Protective Effect on Experimental Colitis

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

40 Patrick Apopa Professional Post-Doc

University of Arkansas for

Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

Cyanobacteria Colonization In The Lung Exhibit Innate Inflammatory

Response Leading To Lung Adenocarcinoma

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

41 Preecha Patumcharoen

pol


Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

KSiga: K-mer Signal analysis tool for virus genome analysis

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

42 Rajshekar Kore Professional Post-Doc


Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

Brain Tumor Tissue Microenvironment Dictates

Exosomal Proteome Content Affecting Target Cell

Transcriptome

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

15

43 Recep Avci Student University of Arkansas for

Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

Estimating Fetal Cardiac Vector Through a Hybrid Dipole Model

Using Magnetocardiography Recordings

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

44 Recep Erol Student University of Central

Arkansas, Conway, AR

A Gentleness Simulator for Surgical Dexterity Evaluation of Surgeons with Haptic Interfaces

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

45 Rhandi Ball Student Mississippi Valley State University, Bena, MS

Using Bioinformatic Tools to Identify Single Nucleotide

Polymorphisms Between Two Cercospora Sojina Infected Isolates

to Identify Herbicide Resistance And Categorize Frogeye Leaf Spots

Severity In Glycine Max

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

46 Ruchi Singh Student DSVV, Uttarakhand,

India

Plant derived smoke as a rich source of antioxidant

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

47 Santosh Khanal Student University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock,

AR

Computational Method for Discovering MicroRNA And Long

Non Coding RNA Interactions

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

48 Shuzhen Sun Professional Post-Doc

Oklahoma State


SNP Variable Selection by Generalized Graph Domination

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

49 Skylar Connor Student University of Arkansas for

Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

Rapid Detection of Zika Genomes from Clinical Isolates

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

50 Stephanie Byrum


Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

Novel Analysis of Staphylococcus Aureus Clinical Isolates Lac And Mutant Derivative Sara Using A

Gel-Shift Spectral Counting Approach To Identify Protein

Degradation

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

51 Steven Foley Professional National Center for


FDA,

Impact of Storage on Fungal Populations in Moist Snuff

Smokeless Tobacco Products (STPs)

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

16

Jefferson, AR

52 Thidathip Wongsurawat

Professional Post-Doc


Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

R-loop Forming Structure Prediction in Viral Genomes

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

53 Thomas Hahn Student University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock,

AR

Reversal of Caloric Restriction benefits in Atg15 and Erg6

knockouts as Basis to Reverse Engineer the Mechanisms

Underlying Caloric Restriction

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

54 Walter Witt Student East Tennessee

State University,

Johnson City, TN

Quantifying the Structure of Misfolded Proteins Using Graph

Theory

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

55 Wen Zou Professional National Center for


FDA, Jefferson, AR

Uncovering Drug-Drug Associations by Data Mining of Drug Adverse Event Database

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

56 Xiavan Roopnarinesing

h

Student Oklahoma Medical

Research Foundation, Oklahoma

City, OK

Assessing Correlation of Methylation State of CpG Sites

within Promoter Regions

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

57 Yan Wang Student University of Arkansas for

Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

The Least Biased Estimate of Visit-To-Visit Blood Pressure Variability: In The Cardiovasculr Health Study

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

58 Yan Wang Student University of Arkansas for

Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

Automated Variable Search and Extraction from Multiple Txt Files

And Associated Xml Metadata

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

59 Yasser Sanad Professional Post-Doc

National Center for

Toxicological

Microbial Populations and Tobacco-Specific Nitrosamines

(TSNAs) in Moist Snuff Smokeless

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

17

Research, US FDA,

Jefferson, AR

Tobacco Products Sampled over a Sixteen-Month Period

60 Yifan Zhang Student University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock,

AR

Identification of somatic mutations in pancreatic cancer

March 23rd 2017

05:15pm – 06:45pm

61 Zaineb Albayati Professional University of Arkansas for

Medical Sciences,

Little Rock, AR

A Study of Pharmacokinetic Parameters and Distribution of BT-2 in Plasma and Bone Samples in

BT-2-Treated male Rats

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

62 Zhichao Liu Professional National Center for


FDA, Jefferson, AR

Mutation status coupled with RNA-sequencing data can

efficiently identify important non-significantly mutated genes

serving as diagnostic biomarkers of endometrial carcinomas

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

63 Zhichao Liu Professional National Center for


FDA, Jefferson, AR

Scaling Bioinformatics Applications on HPC

March 24th 2017

03:00pm – 04:00pm

18

List of Oral Presenters

S.No

Name Affiliation Type Session Time

Session Talk Time Place Date

1 Alireza Karbalayghareh

Texas A&M University, Collage Station, TX

Oral 10:00am – 11:20am

Breakout Session-VII: Reproducible Genomics and Toxicogenomics

11:05am – 11:20am

“Consulate I- II”

March 25th 2017

2 Anita Walden University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

Oral 09:00am – 10:20am

Breakout Session -I Metagenomics and the Microbiome

09:35am – 09:50am


March 24th 2017

3 Anna Zhao-Wong

MedDRA, MSSO, McLean, VA

Workshop Speaker I

01:30pm – 03:00pm

Workshop - 1 01:30pm – 03:00pm

“Ambassador I”

March 24th 2017

4 Binsheng Gong

National Center for Toxicological Research, US FDA, Jefferson, AR

Workshop Speaker II

01:30pm – 03:00pm


“Ambassador II”

March 24th 2017

5 Brian Delavan University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR

Oral 04:00pm – 05:15pm

Young Scientist Excellence Award Session for Students

04:45pm – 05:00pm

"Ambassador IV”

March 23rd 2017

6 Carl Cerniglia National Center for Toxicological Research, US FDA, Jefferson, AR

Feature Speaker

09:00am – 10:20am


09:00am – 09:20am


March 24th 2017

7 Cesar Comapdre

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

Feature Speaker

11:00am – 12:20pm

Breakout Session - IV: Drug Design and Development

11:00am – 11:20am


March 24th 2017

8 Dan Li University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock,

Oral 09:00am – 10:20am

Breakout Session -II: Biomedical Informatics

09:50am - 10:05am

“Ambassador I”

March 24th 2017

19

AR 9 Daniel Games Ouachita

Baptist University, Arkadelphia, AR

Oral 10:00am – 11:20am

Breakout Session -IX : Systems pharmacology and Bioinformatics

10:20am – 10:35am

“Ambassador II”

March 25th 2017

10 David Ussery University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

Oral 11:00am – 12:20pm

Breakout Session -VI: Genomics and therapeutics development

11:20am – 11:35am

“Ambassador II”

March 24th 2017

11 Donald Johann


Oral 10:00am – 11:20am


10:20am – 10:35am


March 25th 2017

12 Ethan Rath Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN

Oral 10:00am – 11:20am


10:35am – 10:50am

“Ambassador II”

March 25th 2017

13 Fred Prior University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

Feature Speaker

09:00am – 10:20am


09:00am – 09:20am

“Ambassador I”

March 24th 2017

14 Gauri Lamture


Oral 11:00am – 12:20pm


11:35am – 11:50am


March 24th 2017

15 Grover Miller University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

Feature Speaker

10:00am – 11:20am

Breakout Session VIII – in silico and in vivo Adverse reaction detection

10:00am – 10:20am

“Ambassador I”

March 25th 2017

16 Harsh Dweep National Center for Toxicological Research, US FDA,

Oral 02:30pm – 03:45pm

Young Scientist Excellence Award Session for Post-doctoral Fellows

02:30pm – 02:45pm

"Ambassador IV”

March 23rd 2017

20

Jefferson, AR 17 Hyundoo

Jeong Texas A&M University, Collage Station, TX

Oral 10:00am – 11:20am


10:50am – 11:05am

“Ambassador II”

March 25th 2017

18 Jake Chen University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL

Feature Speaker

10:00am – 11:20am


10:00am – 10:20am

“Ambassador II”

March 25th 2017

19 John Stansfield

Virginia Commonwealth University , Richmond, VA

Oral 09:00am – 10:20am

Breakout Session - III: Machine Learning and Chemoinformatics

10:05am – 10:20am

“Ambassador II”

March 24th 2017

20 Karyn Willyerd

Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK

Oral 11:00am – 12:20pm

Breakout Session -V: Biomarker and high-throughput data analysis

11:50am – 12:05pm

“Ambassador I”

March 24th 2017

21 Kevin Sexton University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

Oral 09:00am – 10:20am


09:35am – 09:50am

“Ambassador II”

March 24th 2017

22 Kristin McEuen


Oral 04:00pm – 05:15pm


04:15pm – 04:30pm

"Ambassador IV”

March 23rd 2017

23 Lazo, John S University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

Keynote Speaker III

08:30am – 09:20am

Keynote Session - 3 08:30am – 09:20am

“Ambassador IV- VII”

March 25th 2017

24 Leihong Wu National Center for Toxicological Research, US FDA, Jefferson, AR

Oral 10:00am – 11:20am


11:05am – 11:20am

“Ambassador I”

March 25th 2017

25 Marico Bryant Howe

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences,

Oral 09:00am – 10:20am


09:35am – 09:50am

“Ambassador I”

March 24th 2017

21

Little Rock, AR

26 Mark Hurle GlaxoSmithKline

Feature Speaker

11:00am – 12:20pm


11:00am – 11:20am

“Ambassador II”

March 24th 2017

27 Mary Yang University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR

Feature Speaker

11:00am – 12:20pm


11:00am – 11:20am

“Ambassador I”

March 24th 2017

28 Meredith Zozus


Oral 10:00am – 11:20am


10:35am – 10:50am


March 25th 2017

29 Mingrui Li Fudan University, Shanghai, China

Oral 10:00am – 11:20am


10:50am – 11:05am


March 25th 2017

30 Mohammad Hajiramezanali

Texas A&M University, Collage Station, TX

Oral 10:00am – 11:20am


11:05am – 11:20am

“Ambassador II”

March 25th 2017

31 Mohammed S. Orloff


Oral 09:00am – 10:20am


09:50am - 10:05am


March 24th 2017

32 Naureen Aslam

Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN

Oral 11:00am – 12:20pm


11:20am – 11:35am


March 24th 2017

33 Page McKinzie


Oral 11:00am – 12:20pm


11:20am – 11:35am

“Ambassador I”

March 24th 2017

34 Prashanti Manda

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Oral 11:00am – 12:20pm


12:05pm – 12:20pm

“Ambassador I”

March 24th 2017

22

35 Priyam Patel University of Memphis, Memphis, TN

Oral 11:00am – 12:20pm


12:05pm – 12:20pm

“Ambassador II”

March 24th 2017

36 Prof. Dr. Jürgen Borlak

Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Keynote Speaker I

01:30pm – 02:20pm

Keynote Session - 1 01:05pm – 01:55pm

“Ambassador IV”

March 23rd 2017

37 QUANG TRAN University of Memphis, Memphis, TN

Oral 04:00pm – 05:15pm


05:00pm – 05:15pm

"Ambassador IV”

March 23rd 2017

38 Richard Segall Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR

Oral 11:00am – 12:20pm


11:35am – 11:50am

“Ambassador I”

March 24th 2017

39 S. Joshua Swamidass

Washington University in Saint Louis, St Louis, MO

Feature Speaker

09:00am – 10:20am


09:00am – 09:20am

“Ambassador II”

March 24th 2017

40 Samuel Kakraba


Oral 11:00am – 12:20pm


11:50am – 12:05pm


March 24th 2017

41 Sangeeta Khare


Oral 11:00am – 12:20pm


11:35am – 11:50am

“Ambassador II”

March 24th 2017

42 Saravanakumar Selvaraj

Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Oral 10:00am – 11:20am


10:50am – 11:05am

“Ambassador I”

March 25th 2017

43 Selvaraj Chandrabose


Oral 11:00am – 12:20pm


12:05pm – 12:20pm


March 24th 2017

44 Se-Ran Jun University of Arkansas for

Oral 09:00am – 10:20am

Breakout Session -II: Biomedical

09:20am –

“Ambassador I”

March 24th

23

Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

Informatics 09:35am 2017

45 Shahin Boluki Texas A&M University, Collage Station, TX

Oral 04:00pm – 05:15pm


04:00pm – 04:15pm

"Ambassador IV”

March 23rd 2017

46 Steven Foley National Center for Toxicological Research, US FDA, Jefferson, AR

Session Chair

09:00am – 10:20am


09:20am – 09:35am


March 24th 2017

47 Suguna Devi Sakkiah


Oral 02:30pm – 03:45pm


03:00pm – 03:15pm

"Ambassador IV”

March 23rd 2017

48 Suresh Subramani


Oral 02:30pm – 03:45pm


03:30pm – 03:45pm

"Ambassador IV”

March 23rd 2017

49 Suxing Liu Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR

Oral 02:30pm – 03:45pm


03:15pm – 03:30pm

"Ambassador IV”

March 23rd 2017

50 Tanmay Bera National Center for Toxicological Research, US FDA, Jefferson, AR

Oral 02:30pm – 03:45pm


02:45pm – 03:00pm

"Ambassador IV”

March 23rd 2017

51 Ujwani Nukala

University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR

Oral 04:00pm – 05:15pm


04:30pm – 04:45pm

"Ambassador IV”

March 23rd 2017

52 Un Jung Lee National Center for Toxicological Research, US

Oral 09:00am – 10:20am


09:20am – 09:35am

“Ambassador II”

March 24th 2017

24

FDA, Jefferson, AR

53 Visanu Wanchai


Oral 09:00am – 10:20am


10:05am – 10:20am


March 24th 2017

54 Weida Tong National Center for Toxicological Research, US FDA, Jefferson, AR

Feature Speaker

10:00am – 11:20am


10:00am – 10:20am


March 25th 2017

55 Wendell Jones

Q2 Solutions | EA Genomics

Keynote Speaker II

08:00am – 08:50am

Keynote Session - 2 08:00am – 08:50am

“Ambassador IV- VII”

March 24th 2017

56 Wenmin Xiao National Center for Toxicological Research, US FDA, Jefferson, AR

Workshop Speaker IV

04:00pm – 06:00pm


“Ambassador II”

March 24th 2017

57 Yan Wang University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR

Oral 09:00am – 10:20am


10:05am – 10:20am

“Ambassador I”

March 24th 2017

58 Yanli Wang National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), Washington D.C.

Workshop Speaker III

04:00pm – 06:00pm


“Ambassador I”

March 24th 2017

59 Yuping Wang National Center for Toxicological Research, US FDA, Jefferson, AR

Oral 10:00am – 11:20am


10:20am – 10:35am

“Ambassador I”

March 25th 2017

60 Zhen Ren National Center for Toxicological Research, US

Oral 10:00am – 11:20am


10:35am – 10:50am

“Ambassador I”

March 25th 2017

25

FDA, Jefferson, AR

61 Zongliang Yue University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL

Oral 11:00am – 12:20pm


11:50am – 12:05pm

“Ambassador II”

March 24th 2017

62 Ping Gong Environmental Laboratory

Oral 09:00am – 10:20am


10:05am - 10:20am

“Ambassador II”

March 24th 2017

26

MCBIOS 2017 Conference Proceedings

MCBIOS 2017 presenters who had their poster or platform abstracts accepted for presentation are eligible to submit a full paper on the work they presented to be considered for formal, peer-reviewed publication in the conference proceedings. The proceedings will appear in a special issue of BMC Bioinformatics. Past MCBIOS Proceedings have yielded an average impact factor of 5.17 (2006-12), which speaks strongly of the impact of MCBIOS and its participants in bioinformatics. The deadline for submission of these papers is Friday, April 28th, 2017. BMC Bioinformatics is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on all aspects of the development, testing and novel application of computational and statistical methods for the modeling and analysis of all kinds of biological data, as well as other areas of computational biology. Submissions must be within this scope of interest and represent original work. BMC has requested that we restrict acceptance to the top 15 papers. As such, MCBIOS will officially recognize a best paper from among those submitted and highlight it in the MCBIOS Proceedings editorial. Formatting instructions for papers can be found on their website (http://bmcbioinformatics.biomedcentral.com/submission-guidelines/preparing-your-manuscript/research-article). Authors of accepted papers will be asked to pay an article processing charge of £730 (about $913 USD at current exchange rates), an amount discounted for this event from the normal $2,145 charge. Because this is a special issue, fee waivers and institutional discounts do not apply. If you intend to submit a paper, you must send a tentative title and abstract to the Senior Editor, ([email protected]). Because BMC now has an editor make a judgement call on the appropriateness of each paper prior to publication, we will also assess suitability editorially prior to sending papers for peer-review. Papers should be submitted by email to the Senior Editor. Timeline:

April 28, 2017 – Manuscripts should be e-mailed to Jonathan Wren May 23, 2017 – Reviewers return comments to editors June 13, 2017 – Revisions due back from authors June 26, 2017 – Final decisions made on submitted papers by reviewers July 3, 2017 – Editors notify authors of acceptability of papers July 28, 2017 – All final manuscript revisions due to editors along with payment of article processing charges due to MCBIOS.

27

http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcbioinformatics/

http://bmcbioinformatics.biomedcentral.com/submission-guidelines/preparing-your-manuscript/research-article

http://bmcbioinformatics.biomedcentral.com/submission-guidelines/preparing-your-manuscript/research-article

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcbioinformatics/

Biographies Cesar M. Compadre, Ph.D. - MCBIOS 2017 Conference Co-Chair Professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little rock, AR E Mail: [email protected]

Dr. Compadre is a professor at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He has extensive research experience on the development of bioactive compounds based on naturally occurring compounds, and on the use of molecular modeling in drug design and structure-activity studies. He has published over 90 papers and co-authored more than 70 patents related to the development of bioactive compounds. He is also the developer of one FDA approved antimicrobial technology, which is commercially used, and he is also co-founder of Tocol Pharmaceuticals, a company focused on the development of enhanced vitamin-E analogues. Dr. Compadre has

extensive International research collaborations in Drug Discovery, Global Health and Phytopharmaceuticals. Dr. Compadre has a BSPharm degree, and obtained his Ph.D. degree in medicinal chemistry and pharmacognosy, from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He conducted postdoctoral research on structure-activity relationships studies using molecular modeling at the University of Illinois working with Dr. John M. Pezzuto and at Pomona College working with Professor Corwin Hansch. Additionally, he had a sabbatical experience at NASA Ames Research Center in computer modeling. William (Bill) Slikker, Jr., Ph.D. – MCBIOS 2017 Conference Co-Chair Center Director, National Center for Toxicological Research, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Jefferson, Arkansas E Mail: [email protected]

Dr. William Slikker, Jr. is the Director of FDA’s National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR). He received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of California at Davis in 1978. Dr. Slikker holds Adjunct Professorships in the Departments of Pediatrics, and Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He has held committee chairmanships or elected offices in several scientific societies, including the Teratology Society (serving as President) and the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (Chair, Developmental Pharmacology Section and member of the Program Committee) and co-founder and past President of the MidSouth Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Society. He is currently Associate Editor for NeuroToxicology and Toxicological Sciences. He is the past

President of The Academy of Toxicological Sciences, the Society of Toxicology and the recipient of the 2014 George H. Scott Memorial Award from The Toxicology Forum. Dr. Slikker has authored or co-authored over 300 publications in the areas of transplancental pharmacokinetics, developmental neurotoxicology, neuroprotection, systems biology, and risk assessment. He has also served on several national/international advisory panels for the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI)/Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI), Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology (CIIT) Centers for Health Research, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Institute of Environmental Health

28

Sciences (NIEHS), National Academy of Sciences (NAS), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and World Health Organization (WHO). Shraddha Thakkar, Ph.D. – MCBIOS President and Program Co-Chair Visiting Scientist, Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, National Center for Toxicological Research, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Jefferson, AR E Mail: [email protected]

She received her MSc. degree in Biotechnology from Bangalore University, India and her MS, and Ph.D. degrees in Bioinformatics from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR)/University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Joint bioinformatics program. She received her postdoctoral training at the FDA’S National Center for Toxicological Research. Dr. Thakkar is Adjunct Assistant Professor at UAMS College of Pharmacy and Graduate Faculty at UALR. Dr. Thakkar’s research interests are on the use of structural and computational techniques for the elucidation of macromolecular

mechanisms relevant for drug discovery and toxicity. Along with her expertise in crystallography, Dr. Thakkar has developed strong expertise in macromolecular cloning and expression, and on the use of molecular modeling, QSAR and virtual screening. She has ten research publications, two USA patent applications and many research presentations at national and international meetings. Dr. Thakkar has received multiple research and leadership awards regionally and nationally, including 2012 Genentech Innovation in Biotechnology Award from American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientist (AAPS) and Margret C. Etter Student lecturer award from American Crystallography Association. She is the Vice Chair of Pharmacogenomics Focus group from AAPS and Chair of AAPS Biotech Section Graduate Student Research Awards. She is the founding president of the Regional Student Group – MidSouthernUS the MCBIOS student group. Dr. Thakkar was elected as Board member of the MCBIOS in 2014 and as President Elect in 2015.

Weida Tong, Ph.D. – MCBIOS 2017 Program Co-Chair and Feature Speaker Division Director, Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, National Center for Toxicological Research, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Jefferson, Arkansas E Mail: [email protected]

Dr. Tong is Director of Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics at FDA’s National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR/FDA). He has served a science advisory board member for several large projects involving multiple institutes in Europe and USA. He also holds several adjunct positions at universities in US and China. His division at FDA works to develop bioinformatic methodologies and standards to support FDA research and regulation and to advance regulatory science and personalized medicine. The most visible projects of his group are (1) leading the Microarray Quality Control (MAQC) consortium to

develop standard analysis protocols and quality control metrics for emerging technologies to

29

support regulatory science and precision medicine; (2) development of liver toxicity knowledge base (LTKB) for drug safety; (4) in silico drug repositioning for the enhanced treatment of rare diseases; and (4) development of the FDA bioinformatics system, ArrayTrackTM suite, to support FDA review and research on pharmacogenomics. In addition, his group also specializes in molecular modeling and QSARs with specific interest in estrogen, androgen, and endocrine disruptor. Dr. Tong has published more than 230 papers and book chapters. Keynote Speakers Prof. Dr. Jürgen Borlak, Ph.D. Director of the Institute of Pharmaco- and Toxicogenomics,Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany E Mail: [email protected]

Jürgen Borlak was born in Neu-Ulm, Germany in 1958. After studies at Universities in Germany and abroad he obtained his Doctorate in Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Reading, GB. Following postdoctoral residencies in the UK and France (Strasbourg) he was habilitated in pharmacology and toxicology and received the venia legend (“Privatdozent”) at Hannover Medical School in the year 2000. Two years later he was appointed as full professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Hannover Medical School. From 2002 onwards he has been the Director of the Institute of Pharmaco- and Toxicogenomics at Hannover Medical School. This new field of genomic science

applies a wide range of methods in genetics, molecular biology, molecular toxicology and functional genomics for a better understanding of disease causing mechanisms and drug induced toxicities. An array of enabling technologies are applied for an identification of “drugable” targets and for a better understanding of inter-individual differences in drug response, therefore allowing individualized drug treatment regimens and disease prevention strategies. Jürgen Borlak is also an appointed Professor of Molecular Anatomy at the Medical Faculty of the University Leipzig; a Professor of Experimental Medicine at Uppsala University, Sweden and is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Trento, Italy. Jürgen Borlak is author of > 230 original publications and 25 book chapters and editor of the Handbook of Toxicogenomics. He is reviewer and member of the editorial board for various scientific journals. Amongst others he is an appointed expert of the World Health Organisation (WHO), of the US governmental agency FDA, the European Medicines Agency EMA and the German regulatory agency BfArM. He is also an international reviewer for many European, US and Asian Research Organizations.

30

Wendell Jones, Ph.D.

Principal Bioinformaticist and Scientific Advisor, Q2 Solutions | EA Genomics, Morrisville, North Carolina E Mail: [email protected]

Dr. Jones is currently Principal Bioinformaticist and Scientific Advisor at Q2 Solutions | EA Genomics. He conducts collaborative scientific research with clients in multiple areas, specially in oncology and immuno-oncology. His background includes leading the analysis, development and validation of the bioinformatic and computational systems that process complex genomic assays, including next generation sequencing assays, evaluating new and emerging genomic technologies, and developing bioinformatic

implementation strategies. He consults with clients and provides thought leadership in industry and public consortiums involved in genomic science and measurement.

Dr. Jones has over 15 years of experience in advanced genomic technologies and 20 years of experience in scientific and technology leadership positions, including serving as Vice President of Statistics and Bioinformatics at Expression Analysis, Inc (EA) and Chief Science Officer at Reliametrics, a Nortel Networks business unit. He has authored over 30 peer-reviewed publications and has presented at numerous scientific meetings and industry conferences and consortium workshops.

John Lazo, Ph.D. Professor in Pharmacology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA E Mail: [email protected]

Dr. Lazo is currently the Professor in Pharmacology at the University of Virginia. He received his BA degree in Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University and his doctoral training in Pharmacology from University of Michigan. Dr. Lazo is currently the Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Chemistry. Professor Lazo served as associate dean for basic research in the School of Medicine at UVA for three and half years. Prior to moving to UVA in 2011, he held the Allegheny Foundation Professorship at the University of

Pittsburgh from 1987 until 2010 and was chairman of the Department of Pharmacology from 1987 to 2004. From 2004 until 2010 he was the founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Drug Discovery Institute. His Research Interests include the mechanism of action of small molecules and the fundamental biological role of protein tyrosine phosphatases. For more than 25 years, Dr. Lazo has been involved in studying the cytotoxicity and mechanism of action using cultures human tumor cell lines. He has also been involved in numerous PK-PD studies with anti-cancer agents. He has co-authored 11 books, published more than 340 scientific articles and reviews, holds nine US issued patents, and has trained 13 PhD students and 31 postdoctoral fellows. He founded three companies, one of which (ONTY) is currently listed on NASDAQ.

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Conference Workshops Anna Zhao-Wong, MD, Ph.D. Deputy Director, MedDRA MSSO E Mail: [email protected]

MedDRA is the ICH standard medical terminology to facilitate sharing of regulatory information internationally for medical products used for use on humans. MedDRA is used in the registration, documentation and safety monitoring of medical products both before and after a product has been authorized for sale. MedDRA workshop provides an understanding of the scope, hierarchical structure, and characteristics of MedDRA. Navigating MedDRA terminology

using MedDRA Web-Based Browser is included. While offering an overview of the features of MedDRA that relate to the analysis and retrieval of MedDRA-encoded data, the session describes the use of MedDRA to retrieve and present aggregated data, based on the principles outlined in the MedDRA Data Retrieval and Presentation: Points to Consider document. An introduction of Standardised MedDRA Queries (SMQs), an analytical feature of MedDRA, and their application in the investigation of drug safety issues are also provided.The workshop is designed for individuals whose work involves MedDRA or MedDRA-coded data, such as mining FAERS data, mapping terminologies involving MedDRA, etc. Dr. Anna Zhao-Wong is the Deputy Director and the Manager of Terminology Development and Services of the Maintenance and Support Services Organization (MSSO). She has led MedDRA development projects, such as the expansion of medication error and medical device adverse event terms in MedDRA, and provides medical support of terminology maintenance. Additionally, as one of the MSSO trainers, Dr. Zhao-Wong has conducted face-to-face and webinar training courses for participants from regulatory authorities and the biopharmaceutical industry. Dr. Zhao-Wong received her M.D. from Beijing Medical University and Ph.D. from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. She joined the MSSO in the year 2000. Binsheng Gong, Ph.D. Visiting Scientist, Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, NCTR/FDA, Jefferson, AR E Mail: [email protected]

Dr. Gong is a Visiting Scientist in Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics at FDA’s National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR/FDA), with expertise in next-generation sequencing technologies and high-throughput data analysis. His studies have significantly advanced the application of bioinformatics methods and systems biology strategies in basic biological study and translational medicine and his research achievements have been recognized with several awards from U.S. FDA and from China. He has served as reviewer for multiple

prestigious journals such as Oncotarget, PLoS ONE, Scientific Reports, etc. Dr. Gong has been involved as

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one of the major investigators in the FDA led SEquencing Quality Control (SEQC) project, and he is the leading author of one Nature Biotechnology paper and co-authors of several others produced by SEQC project. Dr. Gong has more than 30 research papers published in prestigious journals such as Nature Biotechnology, Genome Biology, Nucleic Acid Research, etc. His researches have received more than 350 citations from government agencies, armies, pharmaceutical and food companies and research institutes. Dr. Gong was one of the chapter editors of the first bioinformatics text book for higher institutions in China.

Yanli Wang, Ph.D. Lead Scientist, National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), Washington D.C. E Mail: [email protected]

PubChem is a database of chemical molecules and their activities against biological assays. The system is maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a component of the National Library of Medicine, which is part of the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH). PubChem can be accessed for free through a web user interface. Millions of compound structures and descriptive datasets can be freely downloaded via FTP. This workshop will provide hands-on experience on using PubChem database.

Dr. Yanli Wang obtained her PhD in computational biology in 1995 from Peking University, China. She completed postdoctoral studies from the National Institute of Cancer (NCI) and National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) during 1995-1998, and since then she has continued to work at NCBI on various research and informatics projects. She is currently a lead scientist at NCBI and primarily responsible for managing the PubChem BioAssay resource. Dr. Wang also mentors several postdoctoral fellows and has published over 40 papers in international journals.

Wenming Xiao, Ph.D. Research Principal Investigator, Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, National Center for Toxicological Research, Jefferson, AR E Mail: [email protected]

Recent technology developments in next-generation sequencing (NGS) have opened completely new possibilities for the deep characterization of molecular mechanisms at various levels of cellular regulation providing information on substance-induced genomic variations, and on transcriptomic and epigenomic changes. These developments will strengthen our understanding of mechanisms-of-action and ultimately lead to a systems-wide analysis thus enabling the development of safer drugs, industrial chemicals, consumer products and improved regulation. This workshop will provide the overview of bioinformatics in

NGS application for an enhanced understanding of underlying mechanisms of toxicity and potential utility in regulatory setting.

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Dr. Xiao received his bachelor in biology from Xiamen University in 1989 and master in genetics from the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Science in 1992. Later on, he moved to United States and finished Ph. D program in molecular genetics form the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1997 and master program in computer science from Marquette University in 1998. From 1998 to 2005, Dr. Xiao was bioinformatics scientist in GeneLogic, MetriGenix, and Celera Genomics. Since 2005, he joined the National Institute of Health as a contractor and then as a staff scientist at Center for Cancer Research, National Institute of Cancer. In Dec, 2014, Dr. Xiao joined Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, National Center for Toxicological Research, Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Xiao has numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals such as Nature, PNAS, N. Engl. J. Med, and Cancer Cell. In 2010, he received the NIH director award and NIH merit award for his contribution in Lymphoma Leukemia Molecular Profiling Program. During his early career in industry, Dr. Xiao defined and developed IT infrastructure and software/database solutions for genomics and microarray data. His recent focus is to develop informatics tools in supporting next generation sequencing technology for intramural research at the NIH for various applications such as, genome assembly, ChIP-Seq, RNA-Seq, Exome-Seq and digital gene expression.

Feature Speakers and Session Chairs

Carl E. Cerniglia, Ph.D., Feature Speaker Director, Division of Microbiology, NCTR/FDA E mail: [email protected]

Dr. Carl E. Cerniglia is a Senior Biomedical Research Service (SBRS) Research Microbiologist, Director of the Division of Microbiology at the National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR), US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and elected member of the American Academy of Microbiology. He is also an adjunct Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR. Dr. Cerniglia leads a team at the NCTR that has impacted public health in a variety of research areas including food safety, antimicrobial resistance, environmental biotechnology, nanotechnology, women’s health and human intestinal

microbiome-host interactions. Dr. Cerniglia's research has resulted in over 400 scientific publications and numerous book chapters and review articles. His research has been frequently highlighted in the scientific and popular press. Dr. Cerniglia has made more than 400 invited presentations at national and international conferences and meetings and is also an ASM Foundation of Microbiology lecturer. The research achievements of Dr. Cerniglia has been recognized by national and international awards from the Food and Drug Administration, American Pharmaceutical Association, International Society of Toxicity Testing, American Society for Microbiology, and American Academy of Microbiology and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Cerniglia was recently awarded the Silver Medal by the World Health Organization for outstanding scientific contribution to the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) in advancing science-based risk assessments on evaluating the effects of veterinary drug residues and other food contaminants on the human intestinal microbiome, the FDA Lifetime Achievement Award, the FDA Commissioner’s Award Merit, the DHHS Outstanding Leader Award in

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providing mentoring, training and career advancement opportunities to employees in a diverse workforce and Distinguished Alumnus Award at North Carolina State University.

Steven Foley, Ph.D. - Session Chair and Speaker Deputy Director, Division of Microbiology, NCTR/FDA E Mail: [email protected]

Dr. Steven Foley is a Research Microbiologist in the Division of Microbiology at FDA’s National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) in Jefferson, Arkansas. Dr. Foley earned his B.S. in Zoology and his Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology/Infectious Diseases from North Dakota State University in Fargo. After completing his Ph.D., he completed a postdoctoral fellowship with FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine. He also served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Central Arkansas and an Associate Research Scientist with the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation prior to joining NCTR. Dr. Foley’s research interests are largely in the fields of bacterial pathogenesis and antimicrobial resistance among foodborne pathogens and understanding the distribution of microbial populations in FDA-

regulated products. Specific areas of interest include understanding the distribution of enteric pathogens and their virulence and antimicrobial resistance factors in food production environments. By understanding the distribution mechanisms of pathogens, we may be able to develop interventions to reduce the spread of pathogenic microorganisms from food sources to humans. He is also interested in the development of methods to better understand the contribution of plasmid encoded genes to enhanced bacterial function. Plasmids are capable of horizontal gene transfer, which could facilitate the spread of antimicrobial resistance and increased virulence among bacteria leading to more difficult to treat infections. Thus a more comprehensive understanding of plasmid genetics and associated physiology should ultimately lead to improved public health.

Fred Prior, Ph.D. - Session Chair and Feature Speaker Chair, Department of Biomedical Informatics of University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. E-Mail: [email protected]

Fred Prior has been named the inaugural chair of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Department of Biomedical Informatics. Before coming to UAMS he was the Director of the Electronic Radiology Laboratory in the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where he has served as director since 2003. He is also was the director of the Center for High Performance Computing, as well as associate director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics and a research professor of radiology. Prior is the principal investigator for the Cancer Imaging Archive, supported by the National Cancer Institute, which provides researchers, educators and the general public with a vast, freely accessible, open archive of cancer-

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specific medical images and metadata. Prior holds seven U.S. and international patents and is working with a consortium of investigators on the Human Connectome Project, which is mapping comprehensively the neural pathways of the human brain. Prior received a Master of Science in biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 1984 and a Ph.D. in computer science at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago in 1992. He served as chief of the Section on Radiologic Computing and Imaging Science at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine from 1993 to 1997. Prior spent six years in in medical information management research and development, holding senior management positions at Philips Medical Systems and Eastman Kodak Co., as well as Silicon Valley startups.

S. Joshua Swamidass MD, PhD, - Session Chair and Feature Speaker Assistant Professor, Department of Immunology and Pathology Division of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine, Washington University in Saint Louis. E-Mail: [email protected]

Dr. S. Joshua Swamidass MD PhD is an Assistant Professor in Laboratory and Genomic Medicine at Washington University in Saint Louis. Dr. Swamidass' group was recently funded by the NIH to computationally modeling the formation of reactive metabolites. This effort is designed to identify the mechanism by which new drugs could be bioactivated so as to cause idiosyncratic hypersensitivity-driven drug reactions, an ongoing challenge in drug development. His CV can be found at http://swami.wustl.edu/swamidass_cv.pdf and website at http://swami.wustl.edu/

Mary Yang, Ph.D. – Session Chair, Poster Chair and Feature Speaker Associate Professor of Information Science and Director of UALR-UAMS Joint Bioinformatics Graduate Programs, University of Arkansas at Little Rock E-Mail: [email protected]

Dr. Mary Yang is a tenured faculty at UALR and Director of the MidSouth Bioinformatics Center and the UALR-UAMS Joint Bioinformatics MS/Ph.D. Program. After completing MSECE, M.S., and a Ph.D. degree supported by a Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship at Purdue University, she joined the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH. During her tenure there, she made contributions to large-scale genomics and systems biology research projects, and was Founding Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Computational Biology and Drug Design, a NIH PubMed indexed journal. She is on the editorial broads of The Journal of Supercomputing and International Journal of Pattern Recognition and

Artificial Intelligence. She has published over 50 PubMed-indexed articles and 70 DBLP-indexed computer science papers. Dr. Yang's main research interest is in developing functional genomics and

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http://swami.wustl.edu/

systems biology-based approaches that render a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying complex diseases such as cancer.

Mark Hurle, Ph.D., Feature Speaker Director, Computational Biology (US), GlaxoSmithKline E-Mail: [email protected]

Dr. Mark Hurle is Director of Computational Biology at GSK and currently leads an interdepartmental project focused on the statistical evaluation of molecular and phenotypic evidence supporting a target-indication pair. Mark is in his 27th year at GSK and has played a key role in GSK's past efforts in antibody humanization, microarray analysis and systematic drug repositioning. Past projects have included pharma pipeline cost analysis, drug repositioning, mRNA expression analysis and antibody humanization.

Zhichao Liu, Ph.D., Session Chair Principal Investigator, Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, National Center for Toxicological Research, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Jefferson, AR E Mail: [email protected]

Dr. Liu received his Ph.D. degree from Nankai University, China. Currently, he is a Visiting Scientist in Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics (DBB), National Center of Toxicological Research (NCTR), U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In past ten years, he led or took part in several cutting-edge projects from both industry and academia. Recently, Dr. Liu focused on developing the standard pipeline to balance the efficacy and safety in drug repositioning and drug safety areas. The goals aims at providing the standard in silico pipeline for drug repositioning and early drug safety detection by retrieving, integrating and organizing the information from chemical, biological and clinical spaces, which

help industry to seek for the optimal route to accelerate the drug development efficacy from advanced regulatory sciences perspective.

Joshua Xu, Ph.D., Session Chair Principle Investigator, Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, NCTR/FDA E Mail: [email protected]

After graduating from Texas A&M University with a Ph.D. in image analysis, Dr. Xu worked as a software engineer for a congressionally funded project developing mobile telemedicine systems. In 2007 he joined the FDA’s National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) in Arkansas, first as an on-site contractor. His experience includes about sixteen years data analysis software and systems development. He specializes in data mining and

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integration, next-generation sequencing data analysis, image analysis, and high performance computing. He has led several system development projects at FDA/NCTR including SNPTrack, an integrated solution for managing, analyzing, and interpreting genetic association study data. His recent endeavor has been with the Sequencing Quality Control (SEQC) project, a large and international collaborative consortium led by the FDA to evaluate the technical reliabilities and scientific applications of whole transcriptome sequencing technologies. Currently, he is leading the deep sequencing QC, a component study of the FDA-led SEQC project phase 2 (SEQC2). Deep sequencing focuses its sequencing reads on few small regions of the genome and thus achieves very sensitive detection of sub-clonal mutations.

Grover P. Miller, Ph.D. Feature Speaker Associate Professor in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR E-Mail: [email protected]

Dr. Miller is currently an Associate Professor in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He received BS degrees in Biochemistry and Chemistry with minors in English and French from the Louisiana State University and his doctoral training mentored by Stephen J. Benkovic in Chemistry at the Pennsylvania State University. After completion of an NRSA postdoctoral fellowship mentored by under F. Peter Guengerich at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Miller joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and later secured a secondary appointment in the

Department of Medical Bioinformatics. His research spans experimental and computational approaches to assess metabolic activation and detoxification of drugs, pollutants, and dietary compounds from the perspective of a chemist. Dr. Miller has delivered 25 invited lectures, published 44 journal articles and 7 book chapters and reviews, and holds 2 issued US patents. He serves on 3 editorial boards including World J Method, Drug Metab Dispos, and Drug Metab Rev. Dr. Miller has served on 17 study sections including those for Amer Heart Assoc, Czech Sci Fdn, Austrian Sci Fund, La EPSCOR, TRI Pilot Fund (UAMS), Enhancement Grant for Research Pgm (Sam Houston State Univ), Universidad de Puerto Rico-Río Piedras Inst Res Fund, and National Science Foundation (NSF) as well as chairing 4 Study Sections for the Amer Heart Assoc. He also chaired sessions at Regional (2008) and National Amer Chem Soc (ACS) meetings (2014). He serves as Chair of Professional Development Committee (2015-present) and the Alternate Councilor (2017-present) for the ACS Division of Chemical Toxicology. Locally, he served as ACS Section Secretary (2011-2), Chair-Elect (2013), and Chair (2014-5) as well as Chair of Program (2013-4), Recruitment (2013-5), and Revision of Bylaws Committees (2011-2). In recognition of his efforts, Dr. Miller received 2 Outstanding ACS Service Awards (2011-2012).

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Minjun Chen, PhD Session Chair Principal Investigator, NCTR/DBB, Jefferson, AR Email: [email protected]

Minjun Chen received his B.Sc (1997) and Ph.D. (2003) from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. He worked as an assistant and then associate professor in the school of pharmacy, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai. He also worked as a postdoctoral fellow for University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) in Piscataway, New Jersey and the FDA's national center for toxicological research (NCTR) in Jefferson, Arkansas. Currently, Dr. Chen is a principal investigator working at the Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatics of the FDA’s NCTR and serve as the adjunct

faculty and mentor for the bioinformatics program joint by Univ. of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) and Univ. of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). He received the FDA award for outstanding junior investigator (2012) and the NCTR scientific achievement award (2014). He and Dr. Eileen E Navarro Almario (CDER/OCS) launched the FDA Liver Toxicity Interest Group in 2014, and now the group has been endorsed by the FDA’s Office of the Chief Scientist as an official working group including > 60 members of FDA scientists with interest and expertise in liver toxicity or liver diseases. Currently, he is the editor together with Dr. Yvonne Will (Pfizer) to create a Springer book titled “Drug-Induced Liver Toxicity”. He also served as the editorial board members for the journals including PeerJ, Chinese herb medicine and as the reviewers for journals. His primary research interests encompass drug-induced liver injury, biomarker discovery, bioinformatics, and toxicogenomics. Dr. Chen has authored or co-authored more than 70 book chapters or scientific publications in the prestigious journals such as Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Journal of Hepatology. His current research focus is in two areas: (1) development of the Liver Toxicity Knowledge Base (LTKB) to address the public health concerns related to drug-induced liver injury, and (2) identification of predictive biomarkers for the prognostics and predicting the outcome of chemotherapy of breast cancer patients for personalized medication.

Jake Y. Chen, Ph.D., - Session Chair and Feature Speaker Chief Bioinformatics Officer & Associate Director, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Medicine E-Mail: [email protected]

Jake Y. Chen, Ph.D., is the chief bioinformatics officer of the Informatics Institute and a Professor of Genetics at the School of Medicine of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and previously a faculty and the founding director of Indiana Center for Systems Biology and Personalized Medicine. He holds a BS degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Peking University of China and MS/PhD degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Minnesota at Twin Cities. In the past two decades, Dr. Chen has been studying “translational bioinformatics”—the science of collecting, representing, storing, retrieving and processing data and knowledge for the improvement of

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human health. His research interest focus on systems biology, data mining, advanced visual analytics for therapeutic discovery and clinical decision-making applications. He has published more than 130 peer-reviewed scientific papers and edited two bioinformatics books, “Biological Database Modeling” and “Biological Data Mining”. He has organized many Biocomputing conferences, among which BIOKDD workshop at the Annual ACM KDD Conference have been running consecutively for 16 years. He is a frequent bioinformatics grant review panelist for NIH, NSF, and DOD. He was named a MIRA Award finalist as “Indiana’s Technology Educator of the Year” for his contribution to informatics research, education, and entrepreneurship.

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